


Every map is blank

by towards_morning



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards_morning/pseuds/towards_morning
Summary: "I expected a better fight from you, Prime," Dreadwing said, large hands pushing down his forearms. He made no move to attack, only squeezed and leaned that bit closer. "Didn't expect to find you off your game."
Relationships: Dreadwing/Optimus Prime
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Every map is blank

**Author's Note:**

> For [@pangolinart](https://twitter.com/pangolinart) on Twitter, the godmother of this ship!
> 
> Title from "Blank Maps" by Cold Specks.

It was cold and growing dimmer on patrol. Optimus enjoyed both elements; the lonely quiet gave him time to think, and the routine of checking known Decepticon outposts gave him the excuse to take time away that went beyond brief solitude. The desert was not as vast as any Cybertronian wildland, but it was enough to give him the horizon to horizon view he missed so dearly from his own world, and the quiet he missed from the archives.

Someone else could have done it, but he always requested at least one round for himself. A slight case of self indulgence.

Regardless, he was never one to let his guard down; so when the dry desert ground at his rear shuddered and cracked under sudden violent impact, he felt more shock than fear as he skidded and tumbled over himself in the onslaught.

"Prime," Dreadwing said, circling as he pulled himself into root mode in the still-bright dusk. Optimus settled into a defensive position without much thought, on automatic. Dreadwing stood where his entrance had cracked the hard ground, the lowering sun glinting off him. His blade gleamed pale yellow in it.

"Dreadwing," he said. When his subprocesses asked if he wished to comm for backup, he didn't dismiss them, but he did set them to idle. They paced around each other. Optimus kept his eyes on that bright blade, and away from wicked points of his armour that caught the setting sun just as cleanly, for the sake of his concentration.

So much of his attention was on that sword that when it dropped to the ground, he couldn't stop his optics tracking it. When Dreadwing collided with his middle he found himself unprepared. Before he knew it they were tumbling and his back hit the earth hard. He brought hands up to grapple on instinct, but found himself pinned.

In the next few moments of silence, his subprocesses asked again if he wished to request backup. They sat waiting while he stared into red optics, close, narrowed but not angry.

"I expected a better fight from you, Prime," Dreadwing said, large hands pushing down his forearms. He made no move to attack, only squeezed and leaned that bit closer. "Didn't expect to find you off your game."

Optimus then dismissed them once again and strained up, bucking against the pin. Dreadwing had no interest in an unhonourable victory; and if he had cast his weapons away, he wouldn't be interested in trickery, Optimus told himself.

Both the desert ground below and Dreadwing above were warm in the rapidly chilling desert.

It was almost a disappointment to lose that, when he heaved and pushed the other off him.

When he surged up, Dreadwing let out a vent that came too close to laughter for comfort. Optimus hooked his legs around an ankle and flipped them, letting instinct take over as he tackled Dreadwing to the ground. Finding himself face to face with a sardonic grin left him uneasy and grasping, feeling there was something he should know but did not.

His guns remained cold. No need to escalate, he told himself, even as he pressed down harder. The sword lay just in his visual periphery, laid down.

"If you like," Dreadwing said, and then he moved up and kissed him, and most every part of Optimus' upper processing crashed for the first time in millenia.

By the time he came to, he realised he had moved one hand to steady himself by Dreadwing's head, dizzy as denta bit at him. When he wrenched away, Dreadwing refused to look away, his now free servo holding Optimus' face just where it was, looking right at him.

"I'm disappointed," Dreadwing said again, though he did not sound it at all. "Simply no fight at all."

It had been a long time he had been in the desert. Not this desert, but a desert of some kind, certainly. A long time since his opponent had engaged in fights ending not in scorched grounds but in the more honourable tradition of submission and the promise of next time.

When Dreadwing flipped them back over, Primus help him, Optimus let it be.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter at [@auto_thots](https://twitter.com/auto_thots)!


End file.
